Banjo Hangout Top 100 Old Time Songs

For TOTW, 1/18/2019. CH. Double C tuning. Wildwood.

Played in the key of A using the "John Brown's Dream" or Low Bass tuning--a A(low) A C# E. Banjo is a Fairbanks Whyte Laydie #2.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12/14/18, this sentimental song plays out in clawhammer rather than the Scruggs picking style I originally learned it in.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, Sweet Nell is the title name of a CD by a Washington-based group who wrote the tunes. The tune is named for Nell, the daughter of Paul Newman, partners in a charity-based organic snack company. It's a sweet tune.

Played thumb-lead two-finger style on a 1960s Paramount reso-tone. Key of G, tuned to gDGCD (sawmill tuning). TOTW for 27 July 2018

This week's TOTW has two versions to choose from -- Wade Ward, who I've heard of, and Dent Wimmer, who I haven't. So I found a Dent Wimmer version of Half Shaved in f#DEAD tuning. What a neat sound it has, though I wonder if the title is related to Shaving a Dead Man....

Me on fretless banjo and Rory Robertie on fiddle. Even though we squared it up a bit from the original, it's still a very crooked tune.

Frosty Morn is the old-time Tune of the Week, 8/24/18. Related to Cold Frosty Morning in some of its melody and chordal movement, here's a medley of the two. The first was learned from the guitar flat-picking of Doc Watson, who I idolize. The second was learned from Miles Krassen's Clawhammer Banjo book. He used Henry Reed's version which he had published previously in his Appalachia Fiddle book. Sawmill tuning, playing on my Doc's Banjo.

This is the Luther Davis version of Sail Away Ladies, or at least my interpretation of it. Presented for Tune Of The Week for August 2nd, 2018. In any case a fine tune!

Tunaday #14 - In Double C tuning (gCGCD).

Cuje Bertram version of Blackbird Says to the Crow with Paul kirk and Stephen Rapp at jam.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/8/18, Trouble on My Mind was recorded by Kentucky fiddler John Salyer's sons at home. Salyer never recorded commercially, but was an excellent fiddler. This tune is crooked in the last measure when it repeats and is unusual in having six measures in the A part and eight in the B part.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/1/18, with no real title. It may have been collected in Ireland and the title forgotten. The tune has a beautiful emotional quality I like. Thank you, Mary Z Cox for presenting another one of your outstanding repertoire pieces this week.

Tunaday #157 - Per Anita Kermode in Zepp's site, this is "Willie Moore G/D" tuning - gDGAD.

Uploaded for the Old Time Tune of the Week for May 11, 2018. From the Mississippi Possum Hunters, whose 1930 recording was a sort of homage to Mississippi John Hurt.